Xbox Cloud Power: Unlimited CPU - Future of Games Claim

[Zanten]

ReimTime said:

SvennoJ said:

ReimTime said:

Ok so I decided to read up on this a little bit. Here is what I have found.

Q: How much bandwidth will it take?

A:It's only essentially sending one set of geometry back to each console per frame.. 3D models are essentially just a set of co-ordinates in space.. even updating hundreds of thousands of these co-ordinates per frame is a relatively small amount of data compared to things like streaming video - which we all do daily.. It's likely less data than streaming the video you're watching.

-When using MS Compute for physics, you are only passing back and forth very small amounts of data, it's the result of MS Compute figuring out how/where physical based items in the game will fall or interact. That info is usually just a few characters that the Xbox One console can use to make it happen in game. The heavy lifting is being done by MS Compute/Cloud.

Reim's notes: So basically the cloud will help with computations, meaning your worlds can be fully physical. Instead of a building being an inaccessible image that will not obey the laws of physics, the cloud can be used to compute all the equations needed to render it a physical object. This does not take up as much bandwidth as we think it may, seeing as it is passing computations back and forth and not streaming or rendering any data.

That's really all I wanted to know to be honest. If it doesn't use much bandwidth than I suppose it is only a matter of cost and how early they can start using it. It looks to me like it may work fairly well.

I will reserve judgement on it until more coverage comes out but as of this moment it looks really cool! As for being always online, Crackdown 3 will have an online and offline mode (where the offline does not have access to physical environments cos no internet = no cloud) so there is evidence that you will have a choice.

Depends on the video quality and responsiveness you need. That simply glosses over the fact that the video you are watching is buffered ahead to compensate for the variable bitrate at which it arrives at your home. When I do a speed test I average out at 20mbps, however it's full of dips when analyzed further.

even updating hundreds of thousands of these co-ordinates per frame is a relatively small amount of data compared to things like streaming video

Again comparing to what kind of video?
A hundred thousand coordinates per frame is 549 mbps for 60fps in raw data....  Sure you can compress that a lot, yet you can't use lossy compression as used for video. I would take the hundreds of thousands coordinates with a huge grain of salt.

Anyway I guess what they mean is they'll only update collisions while the console will track everything in free fall to keep the data flow under control. Yet can they smooth out the spikes that will generate. It's nice to say you only need 3-5mbps on average, yet if a big explosion needs the equivalent of 50mbps or more for a second things might not look that great. So basically the server will have to work ahead to get the collision data to you ahead of time.

Unlimited CPU is great, depending on unreliable 5mbps for communicating with that unlimited CPU is a huge challenge. I'm curious to see how it will perform in a real world setting with wifi routers serving a bunch of other devices around the house at the same time.

From what I read - and again these aren't my words - apparently the maximum bandwidth required is 1.5 mbps to communicate the computations back and forth - so there is no video streaming involved, just communicating computations back and forth. Whether or not that is bs I have no idea; at this early stage I haven't seen any evidence to sway me one way or the other. I am also curious to see how it performs in a real world environment.

Along with general reliability, I'm curious as to how hiccups in the server/connection would manifest. I mean, nothing is going to run 100% flawlessly all the time, hiccups can and probably inevitably will happen, so I'm wondering what happens if a few seconds' worth of of calculations doesn't arrive, or it's delayed, etc, how such things would appear to the player. Would it look like stuttering, whatever assets moving as if the framerate took a giant hit? Would it get all wonky and crazy? Would the game crash? Folks are going to generally be fine with the occasional framerate/visual hitch here and there, so minor performance hiccups probably wouldn't hurt the appeal, so long as they remain minor and fairly sporadic.